I love the way that the guy cleaned up New York City. I was even willing to tolerate his rather liberal views on some social issues. But he lost my support forever when he told interviewer Glenn Beck that illegal immigration is not a crime and should not be.
The relevant quote is here, for those who don't want to read through the whole article:
GLENN: Well, okay. I agree with that, but then you've got this quote from '94 and you give me the context on this. Quote: If you come here, you work hard. You happen to be an undocumented status, you're one of the people who we want in this city. You're somebody that we want to protect. We want you to get out from under what is often a life of being a fugitive, which is really unfair.
GIULIANI: The context of that was for people to come forward to report crimes because we needed their help and we didn't want them to be afraid of coming forward. The context of that was we wanted them to put their children in school not to be afraid to do that. Even with the policy that I pointed, I continued it was probably seven, eight years old, there were still people, illegal immigrants, who would not report crimes. But we wanted them to.
GLENN: Right. But isn't illegal immigration a crime in and of itself?
GIULIANI: No.
GLENN: Aren't you saying --
GIULIANI: Glenn --
GLENN: You're protecting criminals by saying that being treated as a criminal is unfair.
GIULIANI: Glenn, it's not a crime. I know that's very hard for people to understand, but it's not a federal crime.
GLENN: It's a misdemeanor but if you've been nailed, it is a crime. If you've been nailed, ship back and come back, it is a crime.
GIULIANI: Glenn, being an illegal immigrant, the 400,000 were not prosecuted for crimes by the federal government, nor could they be. I was U.S. attorney in the southern district of New York. So believe me, I know this. In fact, when you throw an immigrant out of the country, it's not a criminal proceeding. It's a civil proceeding.
GLENN: Is it --
GIULIANI: One of the things that congress wanted to do a year ago is to make it a crime, which indicates that it isn't.
GLENN: Should it be?
GIULIANI: Should it be? No, it shouldn't be because the government wouldn't be able to prosecute it.
Well that scotches any chance of me ever supporting him. Hopefully none of you will support the guy either. The Bush Administration has failed us for eight years by refusing to get serious on the illegal alien problem. The last thing we need is four more years of the same sort of inaction. How many Americans will die or otherwise be victimized by illegal alien criminals during the next four years if the government does nothing? Right now it's 12-14 Americans a day dying at the hands of illegals, or to put it in perspective, more than are dying in Iraq.
Rudy is neither Democrat nor Republican; he is neither liberal nor conservative; he is neither pro nor anti any of the issues. The only side he is on is Rudy's side.
ReplyDeleteWhen he was the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, he went gangbusters on a number of prosecutions, and then suddenly dropped them (not even plea bargain) when they became awkward for his political designs. [A civil case I handled a number of years ago, the settlement of which included a gag clause that precludes more specificity in my comments, was a spin-off from one of Rudy's dropped criminal prosecutions.].
As was pointed out in an editorial in today's New York Sun www.nysun.com/article/62288 , Rudy's stance enunciated at Glenn Beck's interview lays the groundwork for Rudy to switch sides again, should such serve to get him out of a political pickle.
Just Rudy keeping his options open, as usual.
That being said, I still might vote for him. At this point in time, however, while some of the candidates have been eliminated from my consideration, not one of the candidates has made their case to me.